Laurens Wildlife Rescue

 
Yep, this late summer/early fall is more than making up for the dearth of squirrels in rehab during the spring. So far I’ve released one baby and have 14 more at the moment, one of whom goes back to Smalley’s today to have a broken leg splinted, assuming the second set of x-rays doesn’t show any worse break than yesterday’s did—vet Jim Hobby wants to do another set to be sure, because she wasn’t real cooperative for us yesterday, so he’s planning to sedate her for today’s work. Why no sedation yesterday?  She was “shocky” and traumatized, so we opted to get her stabilized first and then worry about the leg—splinting the leg does no good if your patient dies from stress/shock in the process!
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Here’s a shot of the former pinkie, the one you’ve watched grow over the past 6 weeks or so.  In another few weeks, she’ll be in the pre-release pen!
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And here’s our new pinkie from last update, on August 24, a week after the last update…
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…and here she is on Sept. 2. She’s growing nicely—can you see her rotund little belly?
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This is just a cute shot of six of the squirrels that have come in recently. They’re all bedding together in a soft, warm “nest,” but in order to make sure everyone gets fed, I have to transfer ‘em somewhere as I feed each one—and all my carriers are currently occupied—so this little container that someone  brought me a bird in was sitting there…hey, it works!

Two of these babies had aspiration pneumonia and were extremely dehydrated and malnourished when they came in, as a result of being fed the wrong diet for a week and inhaling some of it into their lungs (aspirating). The person they came from basically decided they were dying and called me to take them. With fluids, meds and a proper diet, they’ve recovered and are slowly gaining weight.

Folks, this is a common occurrence in wildlife rehab: some member of the general public finds a wild baby and decides to try and raise it without the first clue what they’re doing, or they search the Internet and find some cobbled-together, nutritionally unsound diet and use it—and then, when the baby is at death’s door, they decide that they’re out of their element and contact a rehabber. Basically, we get to clean up someone else’s mess, or watch in frustration as a baby we could have saved (had we gotten it in time) dies or must be euthanized.

Don’t be this person; contact a wildlife rehabber immediately upon finding a wild baby or an injured wild adult of any kind.  Humane issues aside, it’s against the law to possess wildlife without a permit, as I’ve repeated ad infinitum, ad nauseum…

 
Stepping off the soapbox now, let me explain that while the possums are still doing well, there’s no photo of ‘em because they’re doing typical possum stuff; that is, they sleep all day!  Actually, the female does wake up late afternoon and run all over the pen. I’m calling these two Manic and Depressive. Manic, the female, is well, manic—running all over the pen frantically, etc. Depressive wakes up long enough to hiss and growl at me from his bed and presumably eat and poop at night, given his weight gain. Honestly, I almost never see him out of bed!
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The Cooper’s hawk from the 8-17 update had bacterial pneumonia in her right lung; after a course of antibiotics, she was released last week.
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The tailless red-tail is now with Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends. Here’s a photo of Steve and his wife Angie the night they picked up the gorgeous lady and brought me a much-appreciated possum release pen that had been donated to Bubba & Friends. Raptor rehabbers don’t need possum release pens, but small mammal rehabbers most definitely do!
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I apparently jinxed myself by mentioning late-season mourning doves in the last update, as I now have two at LWR, a fledgling and a nestling.
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I also received a cat-attacked first-year bluebird Monday. Look at his color—male bluebirds are so much brighter than females!  See those few tail feathers?  The others were lost in the cat attack, those remaining feathers are broken and he’s managed to finish snapping off all but one of them as of today, but the remaining broken shafts will still have to be removed so that new feathers can come in properly. His puncture wounds are healing nicely, but he also has a broken scapula, which appears to be an old injury and possibly the reason the person’s cat was able to snag him in the first place.  At the moment, he can’t fly; he can only break a fall. We’re giving him more time to see what happens.  We’re not giving up easily on this gorgeous bird.

And folks, let me preach a little more here: I love cats; three spoiled-rotten felines share my life. And because I love them, they’re indoor-only—it’s safer for them and for the wildlife around my house. If you want to enjoy the companionship of your cats AND the beauty of birds at your feeders/birdbaths, keep your cats inside. It helps prevent incidents such as the one that brought this young man to me…

 
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Sometimes, the “neat” factor does kick in at LWR, when an unusual guest arrives, and that happened last weekend with the arrival of a first-year Great Blue Heron. These birds stand four feet or more high when they fully extend their very long necks, and they have dagger-like beaks which they know how to use as weapons.
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This guy was lucky in that he had no injuries; he’d apparently just been pushed to a marginal food area by older and more dominant birds, so he was hungry and on the thin side. Watching him eat was a real hoot: he’d spear the fish with his lethal beak, toss them back into that  very long throat—which expands to accommodate larger fish, by the way—and you could watch the fish wiggling as they travelled down his throat! After a couple of days of eating well—VERY well—he was good for release. The morning of his release, he expressed his gratitude by attempting to scalp me and pierce my eyebrow—such a lovely personality!
As of this writing, LWR has received 172 animals for the year, and the fall slowdown is nowhere in sight. I’ve gotten used to operating on a severe sleep deficit; I’ve accepted the fact that my bloodshot eyes probably make me look like a drunk or a drug addict; I’ve adjusted to rehabbing all day and editing all night, assuming no wildlife calls come in at midnight—and they have, believe me, they have. I promise you, dignity and self-consciousness are the first casualties for a rehabber: I toss on whatever has the least animal poop on it to run to the vet; on late-night calls, people are likely to see me with sopping wet hair, no makeup and glasses; my house hasn’t been cleaned in nearly a month now (the rehab area is relatively tidy; my living area looks like it’s been condemned!); clothes get washed as I reach the last pair of clean underwear…

So why do I do this? It’s all about the animals—human activity destroys their habitats daily; they’re forced into marginal areas to feed and breed; they’re hit by cars as they hunt in a long-established hunting area that now hosts a superhighway and/or a strip mall; people make no attempt to control their domestic animals until after they’ve attacked and seriously injured some wild animal... Taking in these injured, ill and orphaned critters is my way of attempting to make up for human stupidity and short-sightedness.  Yeah, most of the birds and mammals I take in are as common as dirt, but I like to think that it’s the efforts of rehabbers like me who help to keep them common.

 
 


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